An Ethiopian soldier watches displaced Somalis in southern Mogadishu

MOGADISHU, Somalia, 18 May 2008 - Gunmen shot and killed a Somali humanitarian worker in the country's southern port town of Kismayo, elders and a colleague said on Sunday.

Ahmed Bariyow, the head of projects with Horn Relief, an African-led organisation that supports peace and development in Somalia, was killed overnight in Kismayo, about 500 kilometre (312 miles) south of the capital Mogadishu.

"He was killed overnight by men armed with machine guns as he arrived at his house. He was an innocent aid worker who has been running many important projects in Kismayo and surrounding villages for many years with Horn Relief," Mohamed Jibril Adan, an elder, told AFP by phone.

Another aid worker, Sahro Abukar, said the slain worker had only hours earlier lamented how rising insecurity had worsened humanitarian operations in the shattered Horn of Africa nation.

"His death will be a blow to many Somalis who benefited from his projects," Abukar added.

Horn Relief was established in 1991 to work with pastoralist communities in Somalia, which has been wracked by conflicts since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

Early this month, the United Nations said 2.6 million people in Somalia face acute food shortages and would require urgent humanitarian assistance to avoid a catastrophe.

This figure is expected to reach 3.5 million by year's end because of a prolonged drought and fast rising inflation.

But the United Nations and aid groups have scaled down operations owing to increased insecurity, largely blamed on Islamist militants who launched a guerrilla war after they were ousted from Mogadishu by joint Somali-Ethiopian forces in early 2007.

Source: AFP